I'm looking for the quintessential dark cloth. Something the stays put in the w ind, blocks extraneous light as much as possible, durable, compact, obedient and safe (no lead weights, please!). Any tips? Is such a thing available commerci ally, or do I go to my local tailor?
Go to your local tailor!! The 2 commercially available types - the horse-blanket or the tube, both have their pros and cons, but neither is perfect. The ultimate darkcloth (IMHO) would be : breathable material, waterproof, and edged with "velcro".
You can go to Calumet and pay $40+ or just use some black corduroy with a sewed in elastic strap and or velcro to close the cloth around the camera...
BTZS tube style - check their website for more details. There are also a number of threads in the archives on this subject, with many good ideas.
The BTZS 4x5 cloth has elastic at one end, an apparent advantage but it crimps the bellows on my camera (a Canham) and so I use the cloth backwards, with the elastic around my neck. I would prefer something larger without elastic, and the price is really high.
Go to your local tailor. Have him make it out of two pieces (white and black) of waterproof material so you can use it to protect your camera in rain. And if the fabric is light weight, you can make it bigger. Snaps or buttons would turn it into a tube easily enough.
I'd be careful on the weight of the material that you use. Some materials can get downright heavy. I'm not sure yet how it will behave in the wind, but my wife is making me a new darkcloth out of a light-weight, but none the less light-tight cloth. When I really considered, I was surprised at how heavy my current darkcloth is. With 30-50 pound packs, any place that one can cut back on weight is a plus.
After reading several comments about how well a black oversized t- shirt worked, I tried it on a day hike. It worked just as well as my large heavy Zone VI dark cloth. It did everything a dark cloth needs to do and weighs next to nothing and it's cheap. No chic, but cheap.
Maybe we should all just go down to the nearest "Wicken" shop and pick up cloaks? It might bring them back in style. :-)
When you consider the number of comments these darkcloth threads provoke and the occasional passion expressed, you'd think we were talking about stem-cell research or nuclear disarmament or terrorism.... Anyhow, I'll stick to my previous guns that it's no big deal, it's just a dark cloth. -jb
Here is my "rocket science answer. As already stated use a heavy duty black t-shirt. I use one with long sleeves. The reason for long sleeves is I also carry along a very light weight nylon windbreaker. If it rains I can side the sleeves of the T-shirt into the windbreaker to hold them together and place have the windbreaker as a rain ocver. Total cost about 10 dollars.
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